The Laws of
Physics in an Animation Universe
Who doesn’t
like a good superhero movie? It captures our attention because no one in real
life can actually fly, have super strength, or move at warp speed. We only wish
we could. What makes a superhero movie so catchy is that it gives the audience
a sense of what ifs. And, if superheroes truly existed how would if effect us
normal beings and how would our laws of physics then change? In the Walt Disney
feature animation, Hercules is set in
a universe where mortals can physically communicate with mythical gods and shows
how much they have an effect on the mortal society. The laws of physics is
broken and exaggerated in this film in order to portray the difference in
physics compared to real life, and to keep the viewers interest.
As we
transition from a musical introduction the story gets right to the point on who
Hercules is and what his super power is as well. In order to make his character
believable he is set in a weightless environment, it is only appropriate to begin
the story in the heavens. Heaven is known to be a weightless environment in
itself but to exaggerate baby Hercules’s strength, he squeezes his fathers’
finger and lifts his entire body weight parallel to the ground. We all know
that it is physically impossible for an infant to lift his fathers’ entire body
off the ground, so making the impossible, possible set Hercules’ power with the
audience. After seeing this you can only imagine how much stronger he will be
once fully grown, which is another attention getter.
Having
super powers on earth is an unusual thing to have when majority of the people
are mortals and that is what Hercules struggles with during his teen years.
This particular scene was a bit confusing to me because with super strength
Hercules should have been able to stop the flying disk that was thrown by a
non-super powered being. Instead, the flying disk picks up Hercules like he was
lighter than the disk and gets thrown across the yard causing him to knock over
heavy columns, and gets blamed for the mess.
Another scene that supports the
weightless environment is when Hades unleashes the Titans. The molten lava was
able to keep its construction of a human form, when in reality lava should not
be able to hold itself up in any form until layers of dried lava is formed on
top of one another. The tornado on the other hand looked an acted like a
tornado, however when Hercules grabbed the tornado by its tail, sucking the Titans up through the wrong end,
it lost the feeling of an actual tornado since normally tornadoes are formed
and controlled by the top end and sucks up through the tail.
Being in a weightless environment
isn’t the only thing that can convince an audience that Hercules has super
strength. Exaggerated anticipation and follow through actions gives Hercules’
super power that extra oomph and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats.
When Hercules had his first encounter with a damsel in distress (Meg), he had
to fight off the centaur, Nessus. After putting up a good fight it was time to
end it with a knock out punch, and to do so Hercules goes into an anticipation
pose with his punching arm, spinning out to gain speed like a tire would at a
drag race, and then upper cuts the centaur launching him into space. As Nessus
is launched upwards, his horseshoes gets disconnected to his feet and follows
his path of action. When all things go up, it must come down and that is what
Nessus did along with the first three shoes that hits him on the head, creating
a bump on his head. Then, the last shoe hooks onto the bump like it would in a
horseshoe pitching game. In reality it is physically impossible for anyone or
anything to knock a horse out of its shoes, so this moment showed that the
physical strength of Hercules is much greater than the law of physics.
The squash and stretch scenes
helped heighten the climax of the film, it helped Hercules transition from one
mood to another. The squash and stretch principle applies to real life, however
in the film, the characters were overly squashed and stretched out to show the
severity of the moment.
When Hercules falls in love with
Meg, Phil comes across Meg and Hades’ encounter and tries to warn Hercules
about her. When Phil approaches him, Hercules’ head is in the clouds excited
about Meg in his life. Hercules throws friendly jabs at Phil and gets really
close to hitting his face but Phil dodges the punch but squishing his entire
body but it arms, creating a silly “U” shape for a split second. Of course in
real life there is such a thing called ducking in order to avoid a hit, but
never to the point where your arms get disconnected to your shoulders.
While Phil is trying to get
Hercules’ attention, Pegasus gets lured into a shed by a pretty pink horse and
just as he enters, the pink horse stretches and gets divided in two. Pegasus’
shocked reaction is a reaction any normal “being” would have, but with that
reaction came a Tex Avery’s Red Hot
Riding Hood moment where Pegasus’ eyes stretched out of its socket, again
pushing the exaggerated reaction.
In conclusion, the films
unrealistic law of physics accentuated the mythical story of the Gods and their
immortal power. It gives us an idea of how overly exaggerated a mortal being
might have to be, physically, in order to keep up with the gods and their
powers. It definitely made the audience experience what it would be like if the
immortal Gods in heaven were connected to earth.
The film may not have obeyed the
true law of physics, but without it made the story a lot more dramatic and
imaginary. Gods and their super powers is not real but that is why it is called
a myth, and because the law of physics is broken throughout this film, it made
the mythological story believable in the imaginary mind.
